Islamic Fundamentalist Group Splitting Palestinian Uprising

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In the first serious split of the nine-month-old Palestinian uprising in the Israeli-occupied territories, an emerging Islamic fundamentalist organization is challenging the protest's clandestine ''unified leadership.''

The Islamic fundamentalists, who promote an uncompromising war with Israel and are critical of the Palestine Liberation Organization, have held three days of general strikes in the last month independent of those called by the underground leadership's leaflets, and there have been several street fights between supporters of the two groups over whether merchants should open or close.

The emergence of the new organization, known as Hamas, a word that means Zeal and is also an acronym for the Movement of the Islamic Resistance, not only poses a threat to the secular, P.L.O.-oriented leadership of the uprising, but has also complicated the efforts of several West Bank leaders to press Yasir Arafat and the P.L.O. leadership abroad to capitalize on their political gains by offering to come to terms with Israel. 'Only by Holy War'

''The land of Palestine is an Islamic trust left to the generations of Moslems until the day of resurrection,'' says the 40-page Hamas covenent issued on Aug. 18. ''It is forbidden for anyone to yield or concede part or all of it.'' It flatly rejected any P.L.O. efforts at ''so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences.''

The organization's goal, the statement said, is that ''the minarets from the mosques will proclaim the creation of the Islamic state so that everything will go back to its correct place.'' Attacked in New Leaflet

The underground leadership attacked the fundamentalist group by name for the first time in its clandestine leaflet No. 25, now circulating on the streets, saying that ''anyone who disturbs by force the unity of our people is serving the enemy and weakening the uprising.''

Hamas has become a major force in the Gaza Strip. A little over two years ago, rivalries in the Gaza Strip were so great that Islamic fundamentalists severely beat several members of leftist P.L.O. groups with iron pipes and set fire to an office of the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The group's influence is still spotty in the West Bank, where many of the organizers are loyal to the P.L.O. But Palestinians said that its protest calls were likely to be heeded in traditionalist Moslem areas such as Hebron, and that its religious pronouncements gave it a claim to Islamic institutions like schools and charities.

Areas with large Christian Palestinian populations, like Ramallah and Bethlehem and its surrounding villages, which have been strongholds of protest, are said to be alarmed at the emergence of the Islamic organization.

Hamas, according to a covenant issued last month, traces its roots to the Moslem Brotherhood, which originated in Egypt. The brotherhood has long had strength in the Gaza Strip, although it had been superseded by another Moslem fundamentalist group, the Islamic Holy War organization. Much of Islamic Holy War's leadership, which was represented in the clandestine protest command, has been decimated by arrests.

Hamas is made up of Moslems of the Sunni branch of Islam and has no allegiance to the Shiite Moslem fundamentalists in Iran led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Israeli authorities have taken no direct action againt Hamas despite repeated crackdowns and roundups that Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin says have seen some 18,000 Palestinians in custody at various times since the protests began last December. A Toleration Is Seen

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Many Palestinians maintain that the fundamentalists are being tolerated by the Israeli security forces in hopes of splitting the uprising, noting that such tactics have been used in the past in the Gaza Strip to set Islamic fundamentalists against Palestinian leftists.

''It certainly is remarkable with all these arrests, that someone like Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who just goes on saying the most awful things about Jews, isn't touched,'' said a Western diplomat, citing the fiery Gaza clergyman who is regarded as the spiritual leader of Hamas.

The Palestinian movement has been plagued by bitter factional and doctrinal disputes in the past and, for Palestinians, a major accomplishment of the protests has been the cooperation between the often-quarreling rivals.

The underground ''unified leadership,'' according to participants, is made up of a five-member committee of representatives of four P.L.O. groups: Al Fatah, loyal to Mr. Arafat; the more radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by George Habash; the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, led by Nayef Hawatmeh, and the Communist Party, along with a representative of Islamic Holy War.

The divisions began surfacing early last month when Hamas leaflets called for a general strike, widely observed, to mark an anniversary on which the ''unified leadership'' had not called a strike, commemorating the 1969 attack on Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites, by an Australian Christian fanatic. A Second Strike Day

Last week, Hamas called a separate, second strike day - largely ignored in East Jerusalem, but obeyed in many other Arab areas - to mark the beginning of the 10th month of protests.

The Hamas document last month was critical of the P.L.O., saying it had been deluded into accepting the idea of a secular state by ''the ideological confusion going on in the Arab world as a result of the invading external thoughts since the Crusaders, supported by Orientalism, the missionaries and colonialism.''

''We share the same homeland, the same pain, the same fate and the same enemy,'' the document said, however. ''When the P.L.O. accepts Islam as the way of life, we will be its soldiers and the wood of its fire to burn the enemies.''

In repeatedly calling for a holy war against the Jews, the Hamas document cited, among other things, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, widely regarded by Western historians as an anti-Semitic fraud. The Hamas covenant said: ''The Zionist plan knows no boundaries. After Palestine, they covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion bear witness to this.''

The document also referred to the 12th century battles when the Moslem general Saladdin retook the Holy Land from the Crusaders. ''The Crusaders came bearing their beliefs and raising their crosses,'' the document said. ''Moslems were only able to strike back when they raised their religious banners under Saladdin's leadership. That is the only road to liberation; history leaves no doubt.''

By contrast, the latest leaflet from the ''unified leadership,'' which appeared last week, called for Palestinians to support Mr. Arafat, the first time his name has been so used. Reflecting the pressure from many of the local Palestinian leaders for the P.L.O. to formulate a plausible peace proposal, the leaflet called for a ''clear and specific program based on Palestinian nationalist principles.''

Analyzing the divisive effect of the Islamic movement in The Jerusalem Post, Yehuda Litani wrote that ''in the short run,'' Israel may benefit from the split between the two movements. ''But in the long run,'' he added, ''the very existence of a fanatic Islamic movement and its strong attraction for so many Israeli Arabs, casts a giant shadow of doubt on hopes for future Jewish-Arab coexistence in this land.''

A version of this article appears in print on September 18, 1988, on Page 1001001 of the National edition with the headline: Islamic Fundamentalist Group Splitting Palestinian Uprising. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe